No Wow

Rough Trade / RCA; 2005

Find it at:

You want to write the Kills off as either fashionistas freeloading off of more accomplished artists or opportunist White Stripes biters, except that everything you read, see, or hear about them-- the predestined bonding over Edie Sedgwick, the one-way ticket from Florida to London, the hunt for haunted mixers-- is a scene from an implausible art-rock buddy movie, and No Wow is the heart-thumping soundtrack.

The band is often described as sexually menacing, but the feeling here is more akin to a couple of best friends who toy with their sexual tension, fully realizing that doing anything about it would ruin everything. No Wow plots the wax and wane of relationships like this, as the duo drop the Velvet Underground curtain and spaz on each other in plain view. On the title track, they're talking shit and issuing challenges: Alison Mosshart scowls, "You're gonna have to step over my dead body/ Before you walk out that door" over Jamie Hince's steady rumbles and thrusts, the two taunting each other until the song explodes into a raunchy playfight chant. "Love Is a Deserter" threatens the firing squad if someone doesn't ante up, while "Dead Road 7" gets sick of the bullshit and shows you the exit sign.

The mothballed drum-machine used on No Wow feels less a Suicide nod than a means to eliminate outside interference. It provides the cool, mechanical pulse for Hince and Mosshart's theatrics without getting in the way like a live drummer would. There's no "hey, hey guys" interventions from the dum-dum box, and the little robo-bastard gets his freak on throughout "The Good Ones", a pulsating convection whose video has onlookers infected by pink lust at the mere sight and sound of the Kills.

"I Hate The Way You Love" and its "Part 2" comedown are Hince and Mosshart moving past the pseudo-drama, both attempting to prove each is more over it than the other. The former is a raucous "whatever" mock insult; the latter is a sappy, screeching acquittal mantra.

The Kills pay tribute to the Benton Harbor, Mich., Meijer's supermarket on "At the Back of the Shell", a handclap-driven exposé of smalltown romantic endeavors. Hince's obsession with a rare Flickinger mixing board that was once coated in Sly Stone's coke rails led the pair to the Lake Michigan town that's as well known for its racist cops as it is for washing machines and Sinbad. Once there, they squatted in a studio and wrote the entire album in just over two weeks. Three weeks later, the record was finished. The expedited process lends No Wow an immediacy and rawness that enhances the band's intention to pare down the sound of their full-length debut Keep On Your Mean Side.

The guns brandished earlier are holstered on "Rodeo Town" which is also the first song on the album to let Hince's guitar take a rest. It's country-fried jangle providing Mosshart the opportunity to stretch her vocal chords a bit. Hince's vocals are only separated once on the simmering "Murdermile" which also has Mosshart briefly revisiting her wailing days with Discount. Closer "Ticket Man" sends the band packing, exhausted and emotionally spent. Over a plodding piano, Mosshart pines, "Too many tickets is the problem, man/ Too many problems is the ticket in my hand". It's a fitting end to a fitful tantrum of a record.

The Kills might wear their obsessions on their sleeve, but they wear them with pride. They follow the tradition of the tempestuous male/female sparring of bands like X and Royal Trux with an utterly current sense of uneasy self-awareness. No Wow steps up to the promise of their EPs and debut LP, a boisterous reminder that kids can still hook up to songs that are little more than a guitar and attitude. If that makes the Kills poseurs, they'd probably be the first to admit it.